A Single Tear
by MadClover-chan
Summary: Ryoma is having nightmares, only these are just memories coming back to haunt him. One-shot, AU and Ryoma is OOC, please read the authors note in the beginning! Not really bad but rated T just in case.


**A/U Hey MadClover here! This is a little something for all you RyoSaku fans. I love Prince of Tennis and one day I was thinking to myself, what would happen if Sakuno was caught in a fire with her grandmother and Ryoma could only save one of them? Well this is totally AU and Ryoma is OC but I thought that it would be okay for Ryoma to show his emotions sometimes because he is still human. Anyways hope you enjoy! P.S. if I am right then Kasai means fire in Japanese and in PoT the "Samurai Drive" is where the tennis ball hits the string holding the net up and is moving at such a high speed that the tennis ball is cut in half. **

**Disclaimer: OF COURSE I DO NOT OWN PRINCE OF TENNIS YOU KIDDIN ME?**

_Ryoma Echizen was running, he didn't know how, he didn't know why, but he knew he had to run. Legs pumping, arms tucked into his sides, lungs feeling like they were about to explode from lack of oxygen. Running, running, running, until he could hear a crackle, a pop, increasing in sound and number. He skidded to a halt in front of a house. He didn't know what house, but he knew he had to save whoever was in there, he didn't know who and he didn't know why but he knew he had to. _

_He sprinted to the door and tried to grab the knob but it burned his flesh. He cried out in pain and glared at the offending hunk of metal that now held his palm print. He glanced at the door frame and then stepped back, lashing out his leg as the door flew into the inferno. _

_The orange flames burst out of the house like a prisoner set free. He rushed in and could hear a strangles gasp. Running towards the horrible noise he found Sakuno Echizen, his wife, lying on the floor in the fetal position clutching her stomach. _

"_SAKUNO!" he called out, she tilted her head in his direction. When she saw him her lips pulled up in a small, sad smile. She then mouthed the words 'I love you' just as the roof collapsed in a great explosion._

Ryoma jerked upright in bed, sweat drenched his body and his breathing was labored. Sakuno stirred beside him and he looked at her face, then the scars in his left hand that extended from mid finger to the bottom of his palm.

He heard a small cry from the crib that was set up a small ways away from the bed he shared with his lover. He walked over and looked down at his daughter, Kasai Echizen, who looked back at him with her piercing cat shaped dark brown eyes; a cross between her mother and father. Inui had told them that the probability of that was less than 1%. One in a long list of less than 1%'s that the infant had beaten.

She reached a small hand out to her daddy and the 25 year old picked up his daughter and cradled her in his arms. Her little eyes drooped but snapped open again and he smirked. _Always reluctant to go to sleep, just like her mom_ he thought as the baby fell into unconsciousness.

Ryoma's smile held for a moment longer, until finally his eyes prickled with the promise of tears. He tried to hold them in but couldn't do so. A single tear slid down his cheek as he suffered through his silent grieving of the fire he almost lost everything in.

Sakuno had managed to get out alive but her grandmother was trapped upstairs, nowhere to go, no one to help her. He had lost his coach that day, the only person who could ever make him mind. But Sakuno had lost so much more; her grandmother, her best friend, her last living relative. So he was strong for her, was the shoulder she could cry on as the truth sunk in. But damn it he was tired, he was tired of having to be alright, tired of not being able to grieve over losing a family member.

Through his silence he couldn't hear Sakuno roll over and sit up. She quietly got up and walked over to her love and leaned her head against his back. "Ryoma what's wrong?" he turned around and she saw his red eyes, the wet track down his face of a single tear held back too long.

Sakuno looked at him for a while longer. The face she knew only to hold a smirk or unreadable expression, twisted in pain and anger. She looked into his arms and saw that he held their child, sleeping in peace, blissfully unaware of the pain that was painted against her papa's face. Sakuno grasped her husband's arm and pulled him back to bed; pushing him down to sit against the head board. She crawled over his legs and sat beside him leaning against his side, her head on his shoulder looking down at Kasai's face.

"Echizen Ryoma, you don't always have to have the answer. Sometimes life returns you a samurai drive and all you can do is try to put the pieces back together." Ryoma snorted at her bad joke and leaned his head onto hers.

"Kasai . . . I still think that for such a harsh word it rolls of the tongue rather sweetly." Sakuno didn't answer and Ryoma knew she was asleep. He looked down at her soft face, almost childlike in sleep. A smirk pulled at his lips, _how did I get so lucky?_ He thought as his now awake offspring look at his face with an almost understanding glint in her chocolate orbs.

**Review? Please? :D**


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